RFID NEWS
Text size:
T
T
T
MRI Gearing Up to Test RFID for Tracking Magazine Usage
According to Fletcher, MRI believes passive measurement could revolutionize the practice of measuring magazine usage for a number of reasons. For one, the accuracy of the data collected would not be degraded by a person's inadequate memory of a magazine title or the product advertised. It would also remove the guesswork from tracking the duration of time a reader kept the magazine open, or the number of seconds or minutes that person was exposed to particular magazine pages.
However, even if the planned tests generate very positive results, MRI does not intend to stop using its existing method for measuring magazine usage—conducting phone interviews with magazine readers—in the foreseeable future, since the cost of deploying and managing RFID networks on a large scale would be prohibitive. What's more, the quickly evolving RFID technology landscape would soon render suboptimal any system it deploys. Rather, the company hopes to use data gathered through RFID to supplement its existing practice, until such a time as the use of the technology for measuring magazine usage matures.
To identify and secure the cooperation of companies with public waiting rooms that are interested in offering their venues as test sites, MRI is partnering with DJG Marketing, a provider of outsourced media and marketing services for the publishing industry. Mattlin says DJG will assist MRI in developing partnerships with publishers for the secondary field tests that will involve a larger number of sites, as well as additional magazines and RFID equipment. Due to the higher costs that will be associated with these later tests, Mattlin says, buy-in from publishers will be vital.
"We know that there is sensitivity in the public about the use of RFID technology," Mattlin says, adding that MRI has no means of using RFID to identify anyone handling, opening or closing the magazines during the field tests. However, he says, MRI is still determining the best way to alert the public to the fact that magazines at test sites will carry wireless electronics to track their usage.
Mattlin notes that advertisers and publishers are very interested in measuring magazine usage in public spaces. People have different reading habits and choices when in public buildings, such as a doctor's office or library, than they do at home, he says, but it's difficult to measure the usage of publications passed from one person to another, rather than purchased through a subscription. "There is a lot of reading that goes on in public spaces," he states, "and magazines with large subscription bases aren't always the ones with the largest audiences," since some titles have larger "pass-along" readership because they are read by many different people in public.
However, even if the planned tests generate very positive results, MRI does not intend to stop using its existing method for measuring magazine usage—conducting phone interviews with magazine readers—in the foreseeable future, since the cost of deploying and managing RFID networks on a large scale would be prohibitive. What's more, the quickly evolving RFID technology landscape would soon render suboptimal any system it deploys. Rather, the company hopes to use data gathered through RFID to supplement its existing practice, until such a time as the use of the technology for measuring magazine usage matures.
To identify and secure the cooperation of companies with public waiting rooms that are interested in offering their venues as test sites, MRI is partnering with DJG Marketing, a provider of outsourced media and marketing services for the publishing industry. Mattlin says DJG will assist MRI in developing partnerships with publishers for the secondary field tests that will involve a larger number of sites, as well as additional magazines and RFID equipment. Due to the higher costs that will be associated with these later tests, Mattlin says, buy-in from publishers will be vital.
Mattlin notes that advertisers and publishers are very interested in measuring magazine usage in public spaces. People have different reading habits and choices when in public buildings, such as a doctor's office or library, than they do at home, he says, but it's difficult to measure the usage of publications passed from one person to another, rather than purchased through a subscription. "There is a lot of reading that goes on in public spaces," he states, "and magazines with large subscription bases aren't always the ones with the largest audiences," since some titles have larger "pass-along" readership because they are read by many different people in public.
